Top SEO Metrics to Monitor and Track

Stacy Wells02/21/2018

Top SEO Metrics to Monitor and Track

5 minute read

Search engine optimization or SEO is a large focus for most marketing groups. So much rides on the search position of your company website, blogs, campaigns, and AdWords. Many companies can tie revenue fluctuations directly to their SEO ranking.

The SEO management process is consuming and can be overwhelming. The experts and advice are non-stop. As a company, we keep our eye on many aspects of our digital performance. But we sometimes wonder–what are the top SEO metrics we need to manage daily and monthly?

Recently, we found this comprehensive infographic from Invoq Marketing that summarizes the top SEO metrics that you must track. If you need clarification pinpointing the essential SEO areas, you should monitor and track, you will find this infographic helpful too.

SEO rankings are fluid and can take weeks and even months to move. However, knowing the main areas to monitor also shapes your goals and objectives.

The Top SEO Metrics to Monitor and Track

Organic Traffic

The best indicator of SEO success is increasing organic traffic. If organic traffic is on the upswing, your page ranking usually improves at the same time. HubSpot and Google Analytics are useful tools to capture organic traffic data.

To build your organic traffic metric, include the following:

Source of organic traffic

Device – desktop or mobile

New and returning visitor info

Keywords and landing pages

Keywords & SERPs

Search engine optimization centers on words. Keywords are the clues that search engines use to link questions and searches to your website. Marketing teams should specify exact keywords that they should and would like to own. Make sure you clearly define these words.

Monitor these four keyword categories:

Keywords – your list

Number of keywords

Position – position on search engines (SERP)

Specific terms

If you would like to learn more about keywords, here are several blogs:

Links & Referrers

Several years ago backlinks seemed to be the determining factor for page ranking. So companies would use dummy sites that linked or pointed to their website. This practice is now considered bad form and actually will penalize your site. Backlinks need to be authentic and valid.

In addition to backlinks, ensure that your website functions properly. Visitors do not like error messages and missing content. Similarly, search engines do not like broken or lost links either. Watch your website for errors and when you find them; fix them.

Here are the things to watch for with your links and referrers:

Backlinks

Spam scoring

Referring domains

Lost and broken links – remember to fix these asap

Site and Page Speed

This metric is quite easy to track. You can use GTmetrix and Google Analytics to test your page load speed.

Other metrics to add to your site and page speed tracking:

Page speed – not just your homepage, check your top pages and new pages